>> 40 meaningless votes that repeal obama care. >> president obama is in denial. >> we've had lots of votes about obama care, none of which had any chance of passing. >> we're not going to give him -- >> we don't have the votes in the senate or in the house. >> we need people with vote -- with tattoos, people without tattoos. >> why is president obama threatening to shut down the government in order to force obama care down the american people's throats. >> i'm not the least bit concerned about what some might describe as perception. >> the house is clearly where things go to die. >> i'm sure the august resist will have our members in in a better mood when they come back. ♪ we're on a mission ♪ come on and ride on the fantastic ride ♪ may i entreat your grace to

pardon me and hear a tale in which the course of obama care repeal did nar run smooth. senator ted cruz and some of his fellow tea partiers are starting to choke down the idea that they face long odds trying to defund the affordable care act through a budget measure this fall. senator justice joined a tea party rally, hoping to foment a grassroots uprising against the law that will soon ensure tens of millions in desperate need of health care. >> we don't have the votes in the senate right now, we don't have the votes in the house, but i believe we can change that. in the next 0 days, i believe we're going to be a tsunami of the american people rising up to demand that congress defund obama care. >> now, cruz' grand plan is to simply write out the funding for the affordable care act in a

continuing resolution to fund the government for the next fiscal year. if that sounds exciting to you, well, then you had better cancel your plans to see beyonce or justin timberlake this summer, because ted cruz is going on a barnstorming ten-day anti-obama care tour with none other than former senator and heritage foundation president jim demint. i know, please contain yourself. speaker john boehner is doing just that. asked today if he's going to jump today on the cruz control bandwagon? >> no decision has been made on how we will proceed. >> i guess his reluctance is understandable. >> there will be plenty more of those, but senator cruz did not lack for support in the house from none other than his texas congressional colleague, the staggeringly brilliant louie goment, who lent support.

>> who do you want to die in america that has breast cancer so that we're on a par with the english system? it will all be equalized, so everybody will be getting less than the health care they would get without obama care. >> everybody will be getting less? really even the 45 million people who have no health insurance at all? lord, what fools these mortals be. let's get to our panel. here in new york city is joy reid, the managing editor of thegrio.com. david corn, and also msnbc policy analyst, the great ezra klein of "the washington post." joy, i apologize for comparing british parliamentary history with speaker boehner, but there was the parliament of dunces in 1404, when lawyers were banned. then there was the adult parliament of 1614. has speaker boehner managed

to -- the addled and the dunces umpgts and then throw in the do-nothing congress that we had in this fair country. i think the funniest part was the part in the introwhen they said they were going on recess. i had no idea they were actually there. they don't do anything. they may as well. >> this is their summer recess. the wind and spring recess, and now the fall recess. >> it's that you are solstice. the bottom line is this congress is attempting -- i guess, to distract themselves by going back in time and repealing things that are settled law. even the supreme court whose majority is conservative has already ratified it. this is done, in the past, let it go, reps. >> absolutely not. david, i think your plans to see hootie and the blowfish are over now that ted cruz and jim demint are going -- i know tickets are vail from the taliban. would you care to pass the logic of mr. gohmert.

and other preventive screenings, that's murdering women with breast cancer. explain that to me. >> the hootie reference cuts deep. >> i apologize. >> joy is right, they've had this fight over and over again. they want to gets in a phone booth and go back in time and undo this. as new parts of the program kick in, and people like it or they realize even better that it's not going to destroy america, it makes it harder action and they get more desperate. what you're seeing is a tremendous amount of dispraise but it's not desperation without a plan. if you look at a recent pew study, a majority of republicans want their party to change, by going more to the right, and so -- >> ted is right. 54%. >> jim demint, who want to being an even bigger powerbroker than in the senate, they're playing to the base, and they're just going to -- you know, they're

like the japanese soldiers at the end of world war ii left in the islands, except they have people out there cheering them on. >> you still didn't answer the question about the staggeringly brilliant lieuies gohmert, but ed ra, your colleague sarah cliff i believe writes that the ultimate coupe might be if conservatives can get union people to just ignore the law, if only the sick and elderly sign up, freedomworks wants to make that happen, and in so doing, doom the law. they even designed some fake draft cards for young people to burn. that seems to me like a risky strategy. >> sarah has an amazing piece in a last-ditch effort to oppose the law civilly in the states. they want to create a kind of mass event, where all these young people come out and burn their obama care draft cards.

the problem, of course, is there's no such thing, not like a draft where they send you a car, so they're making one on photoshop and handing it out, and it was windy. but there is a somewhat sophisticated idea here, which is that the obama care insurance marketplace, which is the core of the law, which will be in every single state. they need a sufficient proportion of young and healthy people to keep the premiums low. a lot of these young and healthy people will get help by subsidies. and some of them, though, are not going to be getting a great deal. the to go to them and say it is your duty to stay out of this law, this welfare-like law and make it crash and burn. my estimation of the success of this is relatively low. in general, i think one should expect that any of these sort of little political campaigns, they end up having a fairly modest dimension to them. in the states this is going to be a much more significant

implementation effort. my belief is that the number of people who will ever come into contact versus one of these is infinitesimally low. >> the fan base is about 60 years old, so they don't have enough people in the demo. >> not enough to sign up for the law. >> if this is what's called the insurance industry death spiral, that we heard about when we were debating, all that will happen, even if they could put this off action is that you would destroy insurance companies, what are their patrons. do they really think the business community is going to let them get away with a plan that essentially sticks them with nothing but elderly people? who, by the way, are the republican base. so whether you hurt the old people, that's your base right wing, hurt young people, they don't like you anyway. or you make then insolvent.

>> david corn, answer that question. >> this is about chaos and destruction. ezra has it right. they're -- and exploit that. are they doing this by going to one frat party at a time? do they have young organizers and freedomworks to do that? >> if the law has a problem, it's going to be making, you know, connections between the exchanges and the states, and getting young penal to sign up, and the biggest concern is that any sort of saeb stage campaign that a few far-right yahoo organizers in washington cook up. >> ezra action back to you. is this worth defunding the government, though? is it worth crashing the country on? >> no. the reason ted cruz can't get any support is that it's a

terrible idea. the idea whether they're going to do is say they're going to stop the federal government, we're going to stop it expletely, unless you let us do this sandwich. we have -- in the actual vote, lost to -- lost in the supreme court. it's not going to work. i would say, to their credit, one thing we end up doing is focusing a lot on of folks like ted cruz or freedomworks which are the oppositional sect here, but i think you're seeing a larger amount of the republican establishment kind of take a deep breath, sigh and move on a little. you get the occasional vote on the house floor, which is meaningless, and allows them to go back home and say they're doing something. what you've seen with cruz and others is a real absence of support from mainstream republicans for this kind of strategy. >> but you still see mitch mcconnell and john boehner caught between responsible republicans, who think this is a bad idea and their tea party

base. they won't take on this issue, and mitch mcconnell, who is up against a tea party primary challenger in kentucky, is going to i think get caught in the middle here. >> the issue, too, is the geriatrics that listen to fox and limbaugh, they have insurance. by far the tea party is more affluent. they have money, and they have medicare. so they aren't sympathetic with the young people who need insurance. young people, up to age 26, these young people are on their parents' insurance, so it's people 27, going on 30, people who have job that may not be able to afford additional coverage, they kind of want health care, so their message is going to fall on an audience that isn't their audience anyway, and isn't going to accept it. >> the message is here's a good deal for you, don't take it. >> exactly. exactly. >> interesting. >> i'm not even sure don draper could help you with that one. >> it's interesting what

freedomworks is having to do. it's hard to say -- taking free money for the government, in case you get in trouble. >> good luck with that one. >> they can't use a self-interest argued. what they've been testing and trying to use is a welfare-shaming argument. you're on welfare, you should better personally ashamed. they said to make it socially unacceptable. i think this stuff is not going to work all that well, but it's amazing. i think ted it's very, very difficult to go to people and say, you know what's not a good deal from you? poor person, free insurance from the government. >> not for ted cruz, though. joy reid, david corn, and of course ezra klein, thank you all so much. coming up, in the face of evil, a survivor's remarkable show of courage inside a courtroom. stay with us. [ male announcer ] this is kevin.

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this afternoon the man who kidnapped three women and subjected them to unspeakable brutal and deappraised acts for a decade until their dramatic escape in may, was sentenced to life in prison, plus 1,000 years. during the proceedings, ariel castro told the court these people are trying to paint me as a monster. i'm not a monster, i'm sick. in a day filled with disturbing details about mr. castro, it was the words of one of his victims, michelle knight, the first to be kidnapped that offered a profound lesson in grace and incredible example of

resilience. >> i took 11 years of my life away, and i have got it back. i spent 11 years in hell. i will overcome all that happen happened. from this moment ago, i will not let you define me or affect who i am. you will -- you will die a little every day from now on. as you think about the 11 years and atrocities that you inflicted on us. well, did you know that old macdonald was a really bad speller? your word is...cow.

cow. cow. c...o...w... ...e...i...e...i...o. [buzzer] dangnabbit. geico. fifteen minutes could save you...well, you know.

there he was today, trying to convince reporters that it was not his incompetent leadership on wednesday that

failed to pass a bill funding two critical -- no, no, no, it was just a scheduling problem. >> considering everything else we have going on this weeks, decided that dealing with finishing that bill in september was the right step at this moment, but side of full confidence the votes would have been there to pass that bill. >> right. unfortunately, it seems, the only scheduling problem involves comments made earlier by hal rogers, quote -- the prospects for passing the bill in september are bleak at best, given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. like the farm bill in june, the speaker didn't have the republican votes to pass a republican bill. it's led many to conclude that if speaker boehner were the subject of performance-related pay, he would not be receiving a salary. but mr. boehner says, don't

believe your lying eyes. >> i'm not the least bit concerned about what some might want to describe as perception. i'm sure the august recess will have our members in a better mood when they come back. joining us now is congressman steve israel of new york, who will head house democrats seats. >> good afternoon, martin. >> do you believe that when members of congress get an earful from still about jobs, immigration reform, gridlock, do you think that will put them, as you just heard speaker boehner say in a better mood? or do you think they'll end up with concussion? >> i hope they good et into a sensible mood. what you just heard from speaker boehner is another chapter in the congress of chronic chaos. and, by the way, this obstructionism and the gridlock and the inability to govern, it's not just process, it's hurting our economy. they couldn't find the votes to

pass a critically important bill that invests in roads and himps, because evidently the highways didn't yield far enough to the right. and because they didn't have those votes and they injected ideology, they can't pass a highway bill. what does that mean? highway workers don't get paid, they don't get jobs. they couldn't stop the furloughs. we're going home for six weeks and we have defense workers going home -- >> no, no, mr. israel, that's the affordable care act increasing part-time workers. that's nothing to do with that bill. >> well, look, they can repeal the affordable care act 40 times, 50 times, we're going to focus on getting it fixed while they're talking about trying to repeal it and putting health insurance companies back in charge. >> of course. the bill that failed would fund the hard and, as you tail, the transportation departments. >> correct. >> but wasn't that failure an implicit repudiation of the paul ryan budget? it seems once dollar values were

attached to the cuts, suddenly even some republicans began to faint and fall over. >> well, that's right. some republicans have realized that their extremism and crisis and ideological injection into every debate is hurting our economy, and now there are only a few republicans who are now realizing there's got to be a better way. i hope when they go home in august and have to defend the indefensible and explain to their constituents why they haven't been able to pass bills, while they haven't been able to pass legislation to create jobs, wile they've been focused -- i hope when they hear that people are sick and tire of ideology, that they come back in september, and join democrats in rolling up our sleeves add getting things doen for this economy. >> good luck with that, sir. i mentioned immigration earlier. today about 40 people were arrested in washington at a rally supporting imsgrags

reform, and protesting gop obstruction on the issue. if enough republicans baulk at funding for the nation's roads, how do you pass something like immigration reform in the house? >> well, you know, all republicans have to do in august is listen. 68 senators, republicans and democrats have passed comprehensive immigration reform. over 80% of the american people want to pass -- why is it that the united states house of representatives now has to be the place that kills comprehensive immigration reform? they republicans often say, have you read the bill? i say, are you listening to your constituents? august will be an opportunity for you to do so, come back and let's get this passed. it's the right thing to do. >> let's hope so. congressman israel, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, martin. stay with us. first, a bit of truly breaking news. a bipartisan deal on student loans. good on you, congress!

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with a delicious taste and a crispier crunch. brown rice triscuit. a new take on an old favorite. here are today's top lines, everybody wants something for nothing. >> the poverty -- >> do you got any spare change? >> everybody out of work is eating. >> yes, and you ain't gettin' it. >> if you're out of work, it's not positive. >> i'm old, gimme, gimme. >> gimme all my money. >> gimme attitude. >> it's gotten a little too personal. >> it's not personal, it's strictly business.

>> i'm inviting him for a beer, anytime he would like to come down. >> i find myself in washington, but i don't expect i'll be there any time soon. i have work here to do. >> there's no scraps in my scrapbook. >> they're getting smarter and smarter. >> if you believe there is going to be a civil war within the republican party -- >> republican on republican violence there. >> the world's gone insane! >> he's making a big mistake, picking a fight with other republicans. >> don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again. >> the republicans on capitol hill are launching a new effort to stop the whole health care law itself, saying -- >> if there's ever a time to defeat obama care, it is now. >> byrd said he thought that was the dumbest idea he ever heard. >> one dumbest ideas i've ever heard. >> i think you have come up with a great idea. >> to try to attach the health care law to this bill that would keep the government running. >> what some have said in

tweets, if the founders have lost the revolution, we would all have universal health care. >> was it over when the germans bombed pearl harbor? >> they're going to have trouble getting them elected to national seats again. >> you fund obama care, you own obama care. >> who can argue with that? >> health care that will cause people to suffer and die earlier. >> not only was it authentic frontier gibberish. >> if anyone has seen it, that's one of the funniest things i have seen. joining us is karen finny, the host of "disrupt" and bob shrum, columnist for "the daily beast." after taking one big punch from kris yik, which actually revealed how fan tastic i ill-informed. does he emerge from this conflict as a diminished figure, do you think?

>> no, i think he emerges as an enlarged figure, a bigger presence. governor christie is completely right in terms of the mainstream electoral, but the republican primary electoral is very different. christie's numbers in the polls are not very healthy. rand paul is very strong when it comes to that prime year electoral rat. the facts here don't matter. kentucky gets back about $1.50 for every dollar it sends to washington. rand paul comes back and says, but we have military bases. has the guy never heard of ft. dix? new jersey has military bases. >> it does. >> but none of this is relevant to the ideologues. the great irony is the guys from the red states receive all these benefits, mostly financed by the blue states. that's the very spending they're trying to cut.

>> of course, absolutely. karen, is this a preview of the 2016 republican presidential prima primary? if it is, it will be a lot of pulled pork. >> get ready, my friend. >> exactly. absolutely. we've seen the fractures within the republican party coming for a very long time, but suddenly they're cracked wide open, not even trying to keep it behind closed doors. it is outs there on the streets. street fighting, basically. you have this faction that's very beholding to the tea party. then you have the sort of center-right republicans that sort of the old guard republicans, you might say. >> all the establishment. >> exactly, and people like the mitch mcconnell's of the world who are who are so terrified that their response is to move farther to the right. the primary sets up this problem for the rest of the republican parties, and this is going to be the tension we'll see playing itself out. >> bob, we saw senator ted cruz outside the capitol in washington today, here is his

plan for defunding the act. >> we don't have the votes in the senate or the house, but i believe we can change that. if in the 60 days hundreds of thousands or millions of americans stand up and demand of their elected officials, do the right thing, that will change this public policy debate in washington. >> so we don't have the votes, bob, but mr. cruz is saying people will rise up against health insurance, even though it's beneficial for them. >> yeah, and there's a lot -- >> how does that work? >> there's a lot of new polling data that suggests that people want to see obama -- so i think they're on the wrong side of the issue. number one, you can't defund obama care, most of it, in the continuing resolution on the budget, because a lot of that money isn't discretionary. >> right. number two, you have a situation where, if you shut down the government to try to defund

obama care, the republicans are going to face a disaster, not just in 2016, where where i think they're headed for disaster, because they'll not nominate someone like chris christie, he would be in deep trouble in to 14. newt gingrich tried this in 1998. as karen will remember, the results were not very healthy for the republican parties. >> i have to tell you, bob, i was just thinking, bring it on! please, please, shut the government down. >> the republicans hate the president, they oppose thinks jobs act, they love to suppress the vote. >> yes. >> and the latest pugh poll shows that the majority of republicans want the party to move in a more conservative direction. is that possible? >> apparently it is, and apparently we're going to see it in some of these rep primaries. >> i would love to -- in all seriousness, with some of the mess teem who were polled and try to understand what do they

mean? 67% also said they need to be addressing problems, so clearly this obstruction agenda is not working, and 59% say they should be reconsidering that i position, so somewhere in there is a tension. if you look at the breakdown with the tea partiesque people and the more establishment there's real difference in the issues in terms of what that means and how it plays itself out. yet, bob, the overall figure of 54% wanting more conservative policies, what is your react to that? >> well, they dominate the republican party there's a line in john kennedy's inaugural address, those who ride the back of the tiger often end up inside. that's what happened to the gop. they have a lot of mere from jerry mandered congressional districts. they feel than they fear that the republicans might not be able to be competitive in 2016.

those are the voters who turn out in the primaries. that's part of the problem. they've got to get through the primary and then have to deal with the general election electora electorate. >> that's why democrats still control the senate, because the tea pare people went out in primaries in 2008 and nominated all these folks who are entirely unelectable. you know, the republican party has a very, very big long-term problem. after the election, the rnc did an autopsy. they came up with a list of what had to be done. it seems to me congressional republicans have decided it's a list of what not to do. john boehner knows this is politically disastrous, but he's a frayed to be called ex-speaker, so he doesn't want to take on his own caucus. >> to your point, martin, i don't think any autopsy could be more conservative. >> certainly not. karen finney, and bob shrum, thank you. a reminder you can always catch karen every saturday and sunday,

4:00 p.m., the best hour of the day, right here on msnbc. still ahead, edward snowden's longest layover is now over. what consequences may his newfound asylum have on u.s./russian relations? we'll have a member of congress in a moment. >> expressing our extreme dismoment in this decision. obviously this is not a positive development, wee extremely disappointed in russia's decision to provide temporary asylum to mr. snowden. [ male announcer ] the biggest news in breakfast is actually tiny. new kellogg's raisin bran® with omega 3 from flax seeds. plus plump juicy raisins. flax seed? who are you? i still got it. [ male announcer ] invest in your heart health with kellogg's raisin bran® cereals. [ male announcer ] invest in your heart health "first day of my life" by bright eyes

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temporary asylum in russia. this means that he's allowed to finally leave the moscow airport terminal that's been his home sing arriving from hong kong on june 23rd. snowden left the airport with temporary refugee at that time tuesday for one year, allowing him to move freely within that country. his exact whereabouts are being kept secret, but needless to say the reaction from many in washington is one anger and disappointment. >> mr. snowden's actions have hurt the ability of our country to protect our citizens. i would hope that president obama would engage president putin on this issue and resolve it in a way that's satisfactory to the american people. joining us is representative jim moran, a democrat from virginia. good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon. >> your colleague chuck schumer said earlier, quote, russia has

stabbed us in the back and each day mr. snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist of the knife. do you share mr. schumer's view? >> no, i think highly of chuck schumer, but no, he's overreacting. this guy is not a hero, but i don't want to make him a martyr, either. you know, i hear from a number of people like that in my own district who are passionate, but imbalanced in their perspective and immature. i think frankly living in russia will be a very maturing experience for mr. snowden, and he'll want to get back to the united states in any way possible after he realizes what it's like to live in a totalitarian state. >> i'm quite sure he will. you voted last week in favor of an amendment that would have limited the nsa's ability to gather data. the measure, as you know, was defeated, buzz it does allow for a rare debate about national security practices. are you glad that mr. snowden's

leaking of this information, if nothing else, is resulting in a little more transparency? >> i'm certainly disappointed that it take a mr. senatoren for us to find out what the truth is. we weren't told the truth. when in fact the author of the p.a.t.r.i.o.t. act, which i voted against, but mr. sensenbrenner wrote it, and he got on the floor and said what is being done is not authorized. we specifically told them they are not to go data mining. that's what they did. we were told by mr. clapper they weren't doing it, and then mr. clapper acknowledges that was the least untruthful statement i could make. and then we're told that there have been dozens of plots that have been foiled. i can only find about one action and, you know, it makes that suspect in terms of whether it was this process that was the sole reason why we were able to foil that plot.

our government needs to be honest with the congress and probably ultimately with the people, or at least trust us to be honest with the people. if we're not informed, it's going to come back to haunt them. the fact is we were not adequately informed about what nsa is doing. i resent that, and i don't have any question about the vote that i cast being the right vote. and you don't have any sympathy with those who would argue that this kind of trolling for information is justified on the basis of security and safety of this nation? >> you can justify it on an expedient base, martin, but we're supposed to be an example to the rest of the world. that's what america's values and principles are all about. it's times like this when they are challenged that it's most important for us to uphold them. you know, you, martin, i know

make all kinds of international calls, and they know every call that you have made. >> they do. >> now, i trust this president and probably most, if not all, of the people that work for him. but what if we have a paranoid president such as nixon, and they decide they know everyone you have talked to, and everyone you have talked to is suspect. i don't like that kind of dragnet. that's not the way our legal system is supposed to operate. you're supposed to have some legitimate suspicion. they say that they only actually look into records if they have suspicion, they take it before the court. the court frankly has become a rupper stamp, but what does suspicion constitute? and why do they have to collect all this? the phone companies have it, they keep it for five years. if you have suspicion, you can

go into the phone company records and pull it out i want if i may, sir, just very briefly, you recently returned from a vitt to guantanamo bay prison. what can you tell us about what you found there, the conditions and so so? so on? >> i was stunned, frankly, because i think it never should have been established, it should be shut down. >> yes. >> but it's two different prisons, because it's two different populations. there are 150 people brought there 12 years ago. they tend to be young, tend to be observant. they were observing ramadan, they were fasting. now some of them are on a hunger fast and being force-fed with a tube thus their nose, because they don't have any hope of ever getting out, because they don't know what they're charged with, so they can't defend themselves. they don't think they're ever going to see their families. but there's a second group, martin. that was the 15 people, now 16,

that were brought there about six years ago. those are the worst of the worst. i think the cheney/bush administration tried to characterize the entire population by those 12. what i found most fascinating is these guys aren't observing ramadan. they're not fasting. in fact, they're not even asking to read the koran. what i was told is they're reading things like "50 shades of grey." they're the manipulators, the people who got manipulated, they're the ones suffering needlessly. i don't care what happens to the other 12. we ought to shut that prison down and prosecute them, and i would hope the president will do that. >> representative jim moran, a clarion call for that, thank you so much. >> thank you. coming up, is trayvon martin ace iconic hoodie destined for the smithsonian?

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this was the last we saw the george zimmerman, the not guilty verdict was read, a brief smile, a shake of his attorney's hand, and then we didn't hear from him again until four days later when it was reported that he assisted a florida family whose car had overturned. but then this past sunday mr. zimmerman popped up again, this time being pulled over for speeding in texas. he informed the officer that he was carrying a gun in the car's glove compartment, something that of course is legal in the state of texas. >> nowhere in particular? why do you say that? [ inaudible ] >> what a coincidence.

zimmerman says he was going nowhere in particular, pretty much like the gun conversation that has all butt disappeared in the past several months. joining us is is professor michael eric dyson. we all understand that mr. zimmerman may feel threatened at this point, but couldn't the carrying of a firearm potentially elevate an innocuous threat into something more serious, given what we know happened? >> absolutely right. the kind of politics behind it i think are questionable, and the personal decision to carry that firearm to only invite unwarranted attention perhaps in a negative fashion, and so capacitier bait an already tense situation i think is not only insensitive, but flies in the face of any claim that his own

right to self-defense was on display that night. as a result, i think he's been emboldened, and seems to be flagrantly flaunting that, you know, brio, that kind of courage, others would call it disregard for the situation and sits sensitivities, so now we have a guy out here in texas, how appropriate is that, with your gun covered, doing everything that's appropriate and right. i'll bet you he didn't engage that policeman in a way he engaged trayvon martin, because there's a different level of aggress potentially available there in the guy's gund and armed himself. isn't this episode an important reminder about what has largely gone missing from the coverage, and that is a conversation about the role of guns in this country? >> absolutely right. i mean, we've lost that -- we've lost the tension. we have designer consciousness attention here, it's branded. somebody buys it, pays it for a

while, and somebody has the pet peeve or concern and it goes on. we haven't been able to sustained attention to this gun controversy the way in which guns have been devastating, inner city communities, the way they've been deployed, the way in which america in general has been ravaged by this mere obsession, this religious devotion to the iconic stature of the gun. that conversation is off the front pages and therefore off the agendas of our politicians from the white house down to local municipalities. nobody is as concerned. unfortunately, martin, it takes a tremendous tragedy for us to be concerned for a moment, and then it seems to go the way of -- >> it's terrible. the director of the smithsonian has expressed interest in acquiring that iconic hoodie that trayvon martin was wearing the night he was killed. i wonder if i could ask you to be brief, but what conversation do you hope that displays that

lookedie will provoke, if indeed it ends up in the smithsonian. much like the decision of the mother to have an open-casket funeral, i hope the display provokes us to thin about the symbols of our racist past and present, and the potential together to defeat the stereotypes to lead to the tragic death that he endured. professor dyson, as ever, thank you, sir, so much. >> thank you. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] ah... retirement. sit back, relax, pull out the paper and what? another article that says investors could lose tens of thousands of dollars

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thanks so much for watching this afternoon. you can always check the website, follow us on twitter, but of course for now, "hardball" and chris matthews is next. monster. let's play "hardball." good evening. let me start with this. it's a ghastly story, more ghastly than most can imagine. three women kept captive in the dark for over a decade, again and again raped, chained to walls. they escaped this may after one of the captive women broke through a storm door on that street and flagged down a neighbor. today the monster who did there, ariel castro was sentenced to life in prison, plus 1,000 years. he h